NY coffee cup creator Leslie Buck dies at 87

Leslie Buck, the designer of New York's famous blue, white and gold cardboard take out coffee cup, has died. He was 87.

Leslie Buck, who designed the blue-white-and-gold cardboard cup with an ancient Grecian design for New York's many Greek dinersPhoto: AP

12:26AM BST 01 May 2010

The cup, the pattern of which was modelled on an ancient Greek design, has served as a pop-culture emblem for decades.

Starting in the 1960s, the Holocaust survivor from Eastern Europe decorated his creation with Greek urns, images of coffee cups and the phrase "We Are Happy To Serve You" in a font resembling ancient Greek.

The cup, made by the Sherri Cup Co. of Kensington, Connecticut, was aimed at urban diners owned by Greek immigrants who were, in fact, happy to serve customers sipping from hundreds of millions of the cups over the decades.

The design soon spilled into the streets, used by vendors peddling coffee on chilly days.

Leslie Buck called it the "Anthora" - unable to quite pronounce "amphora" (or urn) in his accented English.

He was born Laszlo Buch in Khust, Czechoslovakia - now part of Ukraine. He survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, leaving Europe after his parents died in the Holocaust.

In New York, with an Americanised name - Leslie Buck - he went into business, starting a paper-cup manufacturing company called Premier Cup in Mount Vernon, New York.

In the 1960s, Buck joined Sherri, which by the early 1990s was selling 30 million pieces a year of the cup.

They became standard props in films set in New York and television shows such as "Law & Order." Imitators followed, adding variations like columns and discus throwers.

Then came Starbucks and other gourmet shops, sipping away at the ordinary American coffee market, "and they had their own fancy cups," said Robert Buck, his son. "And now, it's not as big a thing as it used to be."

The "Anthora" is still around in many New York diners, delis and an occasional food cart, and it is also popping up as nostalgia - in T-shirt images and as ceramic mugs at gift shops.

Leslie Buck died on Monday at his home in Glen Cove, Long Island, at age 87. He succumbed to complications from Parkinson's disease, said his son, Robert, who for years worked alongside him at a Connecticut cup-making company.